


The Elephant

by rainproof



Series: Loose Ends [1]
Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Pre-Slash, Skrulls - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 15:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainproof/pseuds/rainproof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Steve is back with the team, Carol Figures It Out.</p><p>Spoilers through s02e15!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elephant

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through s02e15 of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.... also an accidental prequel to [Working Through](http://archiveofourown.org/works/629698)!
> 
> I really like Carol, but I know absolutely zilch about her beyond this show, so hopefully my characterization isn't too ridiculous. I just know that Steve OBVIOUSLY needs a friend, and Carol seems a more likely candidate than Jan, so hey. <3

Carol Danvers wasn’t sure what she expected from the _real_ Captain America. 

From the moment the Skrull invasion had been thwarted, Cap’s kidnapping and subsequent replacement by an alien drone became the largest elephant-in-the-room she’d ever seen... one that stomped around the halls and affected every aspect of life in the Avengers mansion. It was as though someone had punched a hole through the middle of their team and the edges were left tattered and gaping; worse, nobody present wanted to start slapping up drywall and repairing the damages, even though it _had_ to be done. 

That day they’d overthrown the Skrulls on the steps of the Capitol building Steve had turned and stalked away from the team, wrapped in a miasma of misery. It had taken all her self-control not to follow the man...but what would she have said if she had? After all, Carol reasoned, it wasn’t her place. She wasn’t one of his long-standing friends, she hadn’t known him before any of this began; Tony or Clint or T’challa, hell, even Thor seemed infinitely more qualified to speak with him about it. 

The trouble was that nobody did.

T’challa had the whole ruling-a-nation thing to fall back on; the false Avengers that had appeared outside Wakanda’s borders had made it pretty clear which parts of their national security were working and which were grossly outdated. She was pretty sure the man had offended Stark when he waved off Tony’s offer to help redefine the system ... but she also knew T’challa had to play this one close to his chest. If someone with a replica of Stark’s armor, or if (God forbid) Stark himself was ever compromised and unleashed its full strength on T’challa’s homeland, well. It had to be armor-proof, and it would be weird to have Tony on the project.

So T’challa was silent.

Clint was sore about the whole trying-to-bring-him-into-SWORD-custody thing; she thought he was getting over it (she’d stopped finding as many spitballs plastered against her door in the mornings, at least) but they hadn’t had a lot of heart to hearts since the incident in the mansion’s foyer. Clint and Jan had it rough, having wanted to badly to believe in Cap that they put their trust in him over Tony. Talk about having egg on your face....

Of course, Tony was an expert at pushing people away, so who could really be surprised?

Tony, though. Tony was the person who most surprised her. He and non-Cap had been close - closer than mere teammates, the same kind of close Carol remembered from her childhood days when the bonds of friendship seemed to transcend everything else, overwhelming in their own simple way. She was surprised Tony hadn’t taken the time to talk to Cap; he’d apologized to Clint at least, but then promptly disappeared down into his lab. He would periodically send his little robots up on scouting missions, leaving them to replenish his supplies of asprin, scotch and pizza, but otherwise it was easy to forget he even lived there.

It was possible Tony didn’t realize that Cap was receiving the silent treatment from the team at large; privately Carol thought he really needed to get his act together if he wanted this group to function as a cohesive unit. She’d seen it in her time in the Air Force and knew it was no less true for being at home instead of oversees - a team needed to work together to stay together. Close proximity brought flaws into the limelight, sure, but it also guaranteed you an opportunity to iron those flaws out when people weren’t firing projectile weapons at you. Deal with it now, or deal the consequences later.

What _was_ it about the Avengers that made it so difficult for them to discuss what needed to be discussed? This team had more issues than National Geographic and if they weren’t going to deal with ‘em than Carol sure as hell would. 

She paused outside the door to the gym and took a deep breath, mentally steeling herself for what was to come. JARVIS had informed her Steve was working out (convenient if slightly creepy, that JARVIS)... she also knew that late night workouts were a regular habit for him despite both the hour and the super serum that guaranteed his physical form stay at its peak. His Skrull-copy had followed those behavioral patterns as well; she winced to think of the late-night chats they’d shared over tea and biscuits.

Carol wasn’t sure what she’d say - or if she’d say anything at all _tonight_. She’d just been getting to know “Steve”, enjoying the camaraderie that came with being ex-military and the way he managed to be both respectfully courteous and chivalrous at the same time (which really shouldn’t even be possible) when the shit hit the proverbial fan and everyone got splattered. Suddenly the friendship she’d been so carefully cultivating had evaporated, and she was left with a near-stranger as a teammate.

But then, stranger or not, he _was_ Captain America. Things would be fine.

Probably.

The door slid open and Carol strode in, tossing her duffel bag into the corner and stripping off her jacket. Steve looked up as she entered, so she gave him a friendly wave before rolling into her usual series of stretches, starting with the arms and working her way down.

That was distracting, at least, and left her feeling more comfortable with the silence stretching out across the gym. Despite how strange her life had become Carol found the changes in her body more than a little addictive - the way she could move faster, stretch further than ever before... if only she’d jumped aboard the superpowers bandwagon earlier in life. She would have _definitely_ made the girl’s basketball team back in high school.

Given how little Cap spoke to anyone lately, Carol startled when his voice interrupted her thoughts. “Ms. Danvers.”

“Hey Cap,” she said, then wondered if she should call him that. Tony did, but Steve and Tony were _actually_ friends, so...

Steve was at the water cooler, not ten feet away, filling up a red plastic water bottle. Tony kept the gym well stocked with clean towels and cold water, and even had a cleaning crew come in once a week to wipe down the mats and machines... Carol wasn’t sure she was up for literal water cooler chat, but hey, an in was an in.

“You’re up late,” Steve stated the obvious in an uncertain way; Carol suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that the man _wanted_ someone to talk to. Or was that just wishful thinking?

“Couldn’t sleep,” Carol admitted, looking up past a strand of hair that had slid free of her ponytail. She tucked it behind one ear, sheepishly.

Steved popped the top shut on the water bottle and, seeing that she’d paused in her routine, plunged forward with his awkward attempt at small talk. “So, are you adjusting?” 

“To what? The team? The powers? SWORD?” she waved a hand helplessly. “There’s so much to adjust to I can’t keep up with it anymore.”

“I know how that is,” he admitted, and this time it was Steve’s turn to look sheepish. “ _I_ can’t even adjust the radio.”

Carol turned her face up to Steve, bracing her hands on the slick mats, and smiled ruefully. His face held a distinct note of sympathy: of everyone on their makeshift team, he was the one with an experience closest to her own... growing up a normal, everyday person and then having superpowers thrust upon him. Of course, he’d actually _chosen_ to undergo the super serum procedures and Carol had simply been in the wrong... well, right place at the right time. But she still felt like he ‘got’ it in a way no one else could.

Thinking back to her casual conversations with not-Steve she realized they’d never talked much about that. Skrulls obviously didn’t care much about the emotional trauma that came with overhauling your body via pseudoscience/magic/mutation/radiation...

She must have waited too long to respond, because Steve looked away, almost ... blushing?? “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Ms. Danvers.”

“It’s hardly an interruption, Captain. And please, call me Carol.” She stuck out her hand and he pulled her up to her feet with barely a twinge of effort. “seeing as we’re on the same team and all.”

She felt awkward about that, too. Steve was officially the only person on the Avengers who hadn’t wholeheartedly wanted her there ... maybe he would have endorsed her selection - Skrull-Steve had, and he was operating with all of real-Steve’s knowledge and habits - but she couldn’t be sure. “Were you serious about that radio? Let’s put on some music, I can show you how to fiddle with Tony’s gadgets. He updates them so often, even a techno-savvy person would have to sprint to keep up.”

She did exactly that, leading Steve over to the wall and finding the culprit - Tony had, for some inexplicable reason - installed a physical wireless switch on the side of his homemade Pandora-streaming sound system. She flicked it on and was surprised to hear Black Sabbath pump out through the speakers.

“Didn’t take you for a hard rocker, Cap,” she teased the blonde, whose ears pinked as he shrugged.

“Tony likes it,” Steve laughed, running his finger over the wireless switch. “Figured I might as well get used to it. You wouldn’t believe how loud he blares this stuff in the lab.”

“No kidding, he’s completely fixated.”

That exhausted the conversation for a moment, until Steve broke in with a smile. “I, ah... I bet Jan was excited to have another woman on the team, she always used to complain about that.”

“Oh, she was,” Carol laughed. “And now I’ve got a front row seat at the Hank-And-Jan show, so it’s been good for everyone. She’s a sweetheart.”

Of course, the Hank-and-Jan show was often all Jan had time for these days... Carol tried not to feel neglected, but it was a little repetitive listening to Jan run the same damn circles around Hank all day long. She’d been dealing with him this week instead of here at the mansion with Steve... but then, Carol wasn’t sure she could really blame her for that. Carol had been spending more time than usual at SWORD, and she couldn’t just blame the whole Skrull-invasion-clean-up thing. Sometimes SWORD was easier.

Steve didn’t laugh at that but he did smile, and his smile was a warm, kind-hearted thing. “I’m sorry, by the way,” Carol said before she could catch the words.

“I’m fairly certain you have nothing to apologize for, ma’am,” Steve told her, faintly amused.

“No, I do,” Carol decided to just go with it; no sense stopping now. “I haven’t been very warm towards you since we pounded the Skrulls and I feel rotten about it.”

The blonde man obviously had no idea how to respond to that, so Carol just barreled forwards, finishing her thought. “I’m also sorry that you returned to find a stranger on your team. Everyone else got to vote as to whether or not they thought I was Avengers material, but you showed up and got stuck with a new teammate. That’s not fair to you, and I guess I was a little worried you’d hold it against me.”

“Carol,” Steve said quietly, “I trust the judgement of everyone on this team, despite... despite everything. If the others think you’re Avengers material, if _Tony_ thinks you’re Avengers material, then there isn’t a doubt in my mind.”

Carol stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t quite expected that response, even though everything she’d seen or heard of Steve Rogers suggested he was exactly the type of person to forgive a girl anything. She ran a hand through her hair, tucked back in its long tail, and felt sheepish.

“Even so,” she managed, smiling weakly at Steve, “I’d feel better if I could show you what I’ve got. You up to a round or two, big guy?”

There it was - that polite smile cracked into a grin of genuine pleasure, and Carol felt satisfaction well up inside of her. Mission accomplished.

“Of course, Carol.”

“Don’t pull your punches just because I’m a girl,” she warned Steve, moving to wrap her wrists and duck into the ring.

“Pull punches? Me? Psh.”

\---

Steve pulled his punches.

Or at least, he pulled his punches until Carol sent him careening over the ropes and into the opposite wall for the third consecutive bout - and then he started fighting in earnest, jumping higher than any normal human could hope to jump, plucking her out of the air, hurling her into corners, and _hell yes,_ this was the type of sparring she’d missed when going rounds with Clint or Tony in between battles.

Time passed in that strange, slow way it did when her powers made everything slight and fluid and easily defended against. It was like she didn’t need to think about what she was doing even as she did it; her body knew, responded, reacted. She sensed the same nonexistent response time in Steve, as if they were executing a tightly choreographed dance.

Eventually that the two of them lay sprawled against the wires, grinning and flushed and Carol felt like she finally had her claws in the kind of friendship she wanted with Steve Rogers.

He grinned at her, honesty written across his handsome features. “Thank you, Carol. I needed that.”

She smiled back. “Me too, I think.”

“I don’t suppose...” Steve let his head sag against the ropes, his eyes trained up at the ceiling. “I don’t suppose you know... you’ve worked with Tony much more closely than I, these past few months.” Given that he was trapped in an alien spaceship a thousand million lightyears away Carol figured that was a fairly true statement, if a sad one. “Tony hasn’t come down for our usual sparring sessions since all of ... that... happened.” Blue eyes fell, then lifted to Carol’s and hardened with a sort of flat determination. “Is he angry with me? I thought he might have spoken to you.”

Carol was ... well, not exactly _surprised_ by the bitter note in his voice, but still, a little shocked. Steve had played everything off more evenly than she ever would have been able to. He’d been held as a prisoner of war while his friends played house with a Skrull impostor, never once guessing it wasn’t him... he’d given up on a rescue, broken himself out of prison, hijacked alien tech and reappeared on Earth just in time to thwart a full scale alien invasion and be turned into public enemy number one by a furious, fickle public. People were picketing Avengers-related sites, demanding he be taken off the team. All of that, and _Tony_ was stressing him out?

“I think you know Tony well enough to know that couldn’t possibly be true,” she heard herself saying, softly. Much to her surprise, Steve gave her a sideways look that seemed almost... what, _nervous_? This was clearly a sensitive subject.

“It’s not that I blame the team for being unhappy with me,” Steve said, softly. “I allowed myself to be taken, I jeopardized the Avengers, and ... though it wasn’t even me, not really... now I’m a public relations nightmare. I’d avoid me too.”

“Cap, I don’t think _anyone_ is avoiding you,” Carol said, utterly stunned. Steve gave her a forlorn little half-smile and she found herself, almost against her will, hoisting herself up on the ropes and moving over to settle down next to him.

Captain America was much, much bigger than her and radiated like a damn furnace, emitting wave after wave of heat. She ran hot these days too - maybe the human body attempting to offset the excess heat generated by superpowered musculature? An interesting thought.

“I’m not sure that...”

“No,” Carol interrupted him firmly - and oh my god, she just interrupted Captain America, surely there was some level of cosmic punishment for that... interrupting national icons and kicking puppies and talking in the theater. “Cap, I know that I’m new to the team, and that you haven’t... you know, actually seen me interact much as an Avenger? But I wish you could somehow see even _half_ of what I’ve seen over the last few months. I can’t guess how you’re feeling about everything that’s happened to you, but can I tell you what I saw here?”

He looked at her uncertainly; it was weird how familiar his expressions were despite the fact that this was, technically, the first time they’d spent any real amount of time together. “JARVIS filled me in, a bit.”

“Well, let me finish coloring in the lines. When I joined the Avengers you were the absolute most intimidating part of the whole thing.” she raised a hand to fend of his protest. “I know it wasn’t you, now, but I didn’t know _then_. You weren’t intimidating because you of the whole Captain America thing - though that still kind of blows my mind, to be honest...”

Steve’s expression softened and she read a little unspoken ‘mine too’ in the way his eyes crinkled up.

“It was more that you were intimidating because you were obviously the lynchpin of this little operation, the thing that held everyone together. Everyone relied on you to be the even-keeled backbone of the team... why do you think the Skrulls went for you? Sure, Tony is the leader and financier, but you’re the guy everyone can agree on.”

Steve looked away and she felt an overwhelming urge to hug him - an urge she squashed down, not wanting to take liberties. “I don’t think that’s true any more.”

“ _Think_ is the operative word there,” Carol told him gently. “Our thoughts and the truth don’t always sync up, as everyone around here has noticed lately.”

Steve looked down at his hands, flexed them, opened his palms again. His hands were huge and calloused from practice with the shield - Carol knew he missed the physical edges of his original model. “That still doesn’t explain why I’ve barely seen Tony since I got back.”

There it was again - that odd lilt to his tone when he said Tony’s name, the way she could feel tension in his frame as though he was afraid of what she might say on the subject. Cap cared about Tony, deeply. That didn’t surprise Carol either... Tony had a way of worming his way under your skin and _staying_. 

Now that she thought about it, Tony had taken the Cap-Skrull news harder than anyone. Carol was beginning to suspect _why_.

“I think he feels responsible, Steve,” she said softly. “I mean, we’re talking about the same Tony Stark, right? Tony Stark, who wants to fix every problem no matter how big? Tony Stark who thinks “impossible” is always followed by the qualifier “for anyone but me”? Tony Stark who blames himself for everything, even things he couldn’t possibly take ownership of?”

Even Steve had to smile a tired smile at that. “You really have been spending a lot of time with the team, haven’t you?”

“You guys are a lot more fun than SWORD,” she admitted, sheepishly.

“I suppose I’m not surprised he took the news hard,” Steve was clearly mulling her words over. Carol began unwrapping her left wrist, neatly coiling the cloth beside her. 

“You could almost see his heart breaking,” she agreed, watching out of the corner of her eye just to see what he’d do. She wasn’t disappointed by the way Steve’s shoulders twitched back against the ropes, the way his eyes flicked up.

That little experiment might have been cruel if she wasn’t 99% sure that at that very moment Tony was sitting in his basement laboratory nursing a coffee, a sense of self-loathing, and a very serious crush.

“He has a funny way of showing his concern, doesn’t he.”

“What, you mean hiding in his lab, buried in a project? That sounds like the Tony Stark I know. Jan seems to think it’s normal, too. She says Hank gets the same way when he’s got something on his mind... I think Tony enjoys problems that he can fix, and when he comes across something he can’t ... like your hurt feelings, say... he finds something _else_ to bury himself in until he can sort things out.”

Steve lifted one of those massive hands and rubbed it down his face tiredly. The whole conversation was clearly uncomfortable for him; she supposed things _had_ changed a lot since the forties. “I’m sorry, Carol. We barely know each other, and here I am just... co-opted you for an impromptu counseling session. That wasn’t very fair of me.”

“Don’t be silly, Steve. I know it’s not really... normal... but I’d really been missing the conversations I had with the impostor. I know it wasn’t you, I _know_ , but his impersonation was so spot on, I sort of feel like I already know you.”

“That’s...” Steve looked at her helplessly. “I have no idea what to say to that.”

“It’s okay, I’m not sure I should have shared it,” Carol winced at how awkward that sounded. “I just meant... that I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk, because I like and respect you. I like and respect you ten times more for the way you’ve handled this Impostor thing; I’m not sure I could manage that sort of awful experience with even a fraction of your grace and poise.”

“Oh,” Steve said, tipping his chin up at her, “I think you’d do alright. Not that I would ever wish...”

“Oh, no, I know!” Carol unwrapped her other hand, uncoiling the cloth in slow loops and running a thumb over the welts and deep impressions it left in her skin. She smiled wryly at how awkward it sounded, at the way they kept bumping up on each other, each quietly afraid of offend the other. She could definitely do this - she could be Steve Rogers’ friend.

As his friend she reached out and squeezed his arm. “You need to talk with Tony. I can tell its eating you both up.”

Steve huffed out a half-laugh at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They sat there for a moment in companionable silence and Carol rolled into her stretches again, knowing she’d feel a few sore spots in the morning. 

“You’re a sharp woman, Carol,” Steve said at last, smiling a smile that touched his eyes.

“People do say that,” she grinned.

“I feel like an idiot,” he added, softly. “I’ve been moping about this for days, as though _that_ ever solved any problems. I let myself get overwhelmed.”

“Moping can be very cathartic!” she informed him, grinning over the lip of her water bottle.

Steve clambered to his feet and offered her a hand up for the umpteenth time. Carol took it, steadied herself, then gave his hand a firm shake.

“I’m glad we had a chance to talk,” she told Steve, brushing her hair behind one ear. “I really am looking forward to working with you.”

“And I with you,” Steve’s answer was formal, but she was starting to realize that was just the way he was. “Let me know next time you want to go a few rounds. It’s nice having someone around with a little upper body strength who isn’t... well... the Hulk.”

Carol thumped him on the arm. “Any time, Cap. Good luck with Tony, I’m sure it will go swimmingly. Just be honest - and remember how his filters work. Or don’t work,” she added, with a grin.

“I will,” Steve said, tossing the towel he’d had wrapped over his neck into the dirty laundry bin and disappearing out the door; Carol could hear him taking the steps two at a time.

“I think tomorrow night sounds like a good night for a team dinner,” she said to no one at all. “Maybe Chinese.... Clint’s always down for Chinese.”

Pleased with her handwork, she took another swig from her water bottle and sauntered up to her room, feeling lighter than she had for days.


End file.
